Man versus Nature

In late February 1910, two trains sat filled with passengers and workers, stranded high in the North Cascades of Washington State as a nine-day snow storm ravaged the landscape.

Nature Won

In spite of a valiant battle by the Great Northern Railroad to get the passengers to safety, nature prevailed. On March 1, 1910, an avalanche rocketed down the mountainside above Wellington as the passengers slept on the trains. The trains were swept away down the mountain, until they came to rest on a ledge above the Tye River. At least 96 people perished.

Spirits Remain

In the intervening century, the Wellington avalanche site has turned more than one skeptic into a believer in ghosts. Author Karen Frazier is among those who now believe that many who perished in the worst avalanche train disaster in the history of the United States remain.

In memory of those who lost their lives in the worst avalanche disaster in American history

Several of the GNR employees who died in the Wellington avalanche were buried in the Great Northern Railway section at Seattle's Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

A Note About the Death Toll From the Wellington Avalanche

It is virtually impossible to know how many actually died in the Wellington avalanche. Published numbers swing anywhere from 96 up to around 120. There is some evidence that the GNR, faced with a public relations disaster, made an effort to keep the published numbers as low as possible. They wanted to keep it under 100. There are a number of reasons why some victims may have not made the official death toll.

The trains, locomotives, and rotaries that had been swept away by the avalanche came to rest on a shelf above the Tye River. The weather warmed while rescue attempts were underway. There is much speculation that this led to a melting of the ice above the river and that a number of bodies fell through and were swept away downstream, never to be found.

The GNR was in the midst of labor difficulties. Several laborers had walked off the job because they wanted to be compensated more for the backbreaking work that they were doing at Wellington. They believed that the conditions at Wellington put them in a very strong negotiating position, but the GNR felt very strongly about not giving in to extortion or blackmail and wouldn't budget on their wages. There is no record of how many laborers walked out and how many remained at Wellington. Speculation is that many of the unknown and unacknowledged dead were these laborers.

In many cases, the GNR didn't know the name of the laborers, who received cash as wages. Many of these laborers were Italians, who, at the time, were considered to be almost sub-human. There are six unknowns on the list above -- six unidentified workers. Many believe they were Italian laborers, and the railroad had never known their name, which is why they couldn't be identified. The initial estimated death toll came in at right around 120 - before bodies were recovered. There is a good chance that, if the numbers were indeed this high, there were many more unnamed laborers who were left off the death rolls in order to make the number appear below 100.

Working on the Railroad

In the news stories and later literature about the Wellington avalanche, much attention is paid to the passengers of Local No. 25 who were killed in the avalanche. What the news reports didn't share as widely at the time was just how many GNR employees were killed in and survived the avalanche. Railroad workers waged a battle in the 10 days leading up to the avalanche, digging snow by hand or plowing using rotary plows attached to engines. Often, they cleared the same spot in the track repeatedly as more slides and debris came down from the hillside.

Many of the railroad employees worked for days in some of the harshest conditions imaginable, grabbing sleep in installments of a few minutes or hours before they got back to work. When the avalanche came on March 1, 1910, many were sleeping in available racks on Local No. 25 and the Fast Mail Train - getting the first full night's sleep they'd had in days.

Their hard work and sacrifice will not be forgotten.

The plaque at the Wellington trailhead reads . . .

Iron Goat Trail No. 1074

September 30, 2000

Dedicated to

Those who toiled to build a transportation route through the cascade mountain range 1890-1893.

Those who lost their lives in its construction and operation through accidents and avalanche disasters 1893-1929.

About the Town of Wellington

A snow shed now stands where the trains waited on the tracks at Wellington.

The crumbling remains of the snow shed at Wellington.

In what was once a bustling railroad town where people built their lives and grew their families amidst rugged mountains peaks, there now sits a parking lot and the crumbling foundations of a few of the buildings that were there. Sadly, the town of Wellington died as tragic of a death as did the people in the trains lost in avalanches and other railroad disasters at Wellington.

After the avalanche, everyone wanted to remove the tragedy from the public psyche as quickly as possible. The name Wellington had become synonymous with death and disaster. The town was quietly rename Tye, and it remained intact for another 20 years until the GNR built a new Cascade Tunnel with new tracks lower in the mountains. When the railroad went away, the town slowly disappeared.

We would also like to remember and acknowledge those brave souls who built their lives in such a breathtakingly beautiful, yet harsh, location. They too endured unimaginable tragedy as they watched the town they had built, lived in, and loved fade away to nothingness. Their sacrifice is no less noble than those who died in the avalanche disasters.